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First off, I pass this vehicle on St John’s Hill in Ipswich. How can this possibly be not classed as obstruction? It is happens regularly here, and I have reported it to the police , but it still continues.

A mins further on and I spot this van, car and wheelie bin making life for pedestrians very difficult on St Helen’s Street outside H & F Autos.

Then onto Grimwade Street and the pavement next to a bus stop is completely blocked by this scaffolding lorry for the third day running. For sure, these guys need to unload safely and get a complex load of scaffolding installed, but do they need to bock the pavement like this? Are they allowed to? If so then should they have applied for permission? And have they done it safely and properly? In reality pedestrians walk past the sign rather than risking their lives crossing a busy fast one-way street at the suggested location.

I spoke to the company and the MD told me that he believes that no permission is needed to do this.

Checking some legislation, the ‘New Roads and Street Works Act 1991’ may be applicable. However, it says that one should not “create an obstruction in a street to a greater extent or for a longer period than is reasonably necessary, the street authority may by notice require him to take such reasonable steps as are specified in the notice to mitigate or discontinue the obstruction“. (section 66) which implies that they should have asked to permission. I will do some more digging.

Pop round the corner onto Fore Street, opposite the university, and we find UPS well up on the pavement. Notice the ‘no waiting’ ticks on the pavement.

Update (Friday 6 Jan 2017)

I was pleased to see that today the scaffolders have replaced the ‘pedestrians cross the road’ sign with a ‘warning men working overhead’ which is much more appropriate.

The BBC recently showed a documentary, Impact, A horizon guide to car crashes without even mentioning pedestrians or cyclists, or anyone else not in a car, which is a shame considering that almost 30% of all people killed on the roads these days are not in cars (In 2011 there were 453 pedestrian and 111 cyclist deaths out of a total of 1,901 people killed on GB roads). This isn’t even the first time it has happened. In 2011 the BBC showed a program titled ‘surviving a car crash’, which also failed to even make a passing nod to the dead and injured pedestrians and cyclists.

“The BBC has again aired a program about car crashes and technological changes to make vehicles safer without mentioning once that pedestrians or cyclists also get killed. The program is called ‘Impact, A horizon guide to car crashes’ (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b03f438q) For the record, in 2011, of the 1901 people killed on the road in GB almost 30% were not in a vehicle, (453 were pedestrians and 111 were cyclists). Regrettably, this isn’t even the first time the BBC has done this. Back in 2011 you did the same with ‘surviving a car crash’. (http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00ylxg8)

“Please can you prepare and air a documentary focused on the work being done (and not being done) to help vulnerable road users and ensure that pedestrians and cyclists at least get a mention in any program about vehicle safety. Incidentally, are you aware that cars with pedestrian ratings of zero are still allowed to be sold in this country. (http://www.standard.co.uk/news/cars-fail-in-pedestrian-safety-tests-6327782.html)

See Me Save Me is a new campaign to make HGVs safer and reduce the shocking levels of injury inflicted by them on vulnerable road users, particularly on cyclists but also pedestrians. The campaign is pressing for better design of trucks, improved on-vehicle safety technology and better design of junctions.

This is one of saddest maps I have ever studied. It is an online slippy map showing where people died in traffic collisions – every single square represents someone who didn’t come home one day over the past 10 years. Here are some screen-grabs. The first image is for the West Midlands area; the blue square indicate where people were killed in traffic crashes while walking, the green ones for people cycling, the orange ones for people on motorbikes and the purple ones for vehicle occupants. The second image gives a more detailed view. Notice the 1 year old girl, the 12 year old boy, the 20 year old young woman and all the others. Do try it for yourself and see what the war likes around where you live. When is this civil war (between motorcars and people) going to be brought to a close and who will ensure that it happens? Possibly for starters we should take a moment to grieve on Sunday along with thousands of other people around the world on World Day of Remembrance for Road Traffic Victims. See below for places where services are being held in memory in the UK.

Edinburgh is proposing a significant increase in the number of streets covered by 20mph. This is being promoted as a way to encourage waking and cycling and to improve road safety. It has been reported that they also support the scheme because ‘lower speeds make people feel safer when they are walking and cycling and make streets better places to live’. I am very supportive of 20mph zones, I live in one myself, and they do indeed help make streets feel less intimidating. However.. it is also very clear that 30 mph speed limits are being retained on the roads where most people are getting injured.

Here are three maps to show the compromises being taken between road safety and ‘keeping traffic moving’. The first map shows the proposed streets to be 20 mph (green and yellow) and 30 mph (blue). The second map shows where people have been injured between 2000 and 2010 by mode (blue for pedestrian, red for cyclists, tan/green for vehicle occupant). The final map shows these two superimposed illustrating that very few crashes from the past 10 years have actually occurred on the roads included on the scheme. (Click on maps for full size versions)

Existing 20 mph zones (green) and proposed schemes (yellow)

Location of traffic casualties by mode in Edinburgh 2000-2010

Overlay, traffic casualties 2000-2010 on top of proposed speed limits

One realistic approach for now might be to welcome the introduction of these 20 mph limits in residential areas and also to also press for average speed camera checks on the remaining arterial roads enforcing the 30 mph limit as they have just installed in part of Plymouth.

The Stats19 casualty data that the police have been patiently collecting for many years now is a mine of information. Here are some maps looking at where pedestrians and cyclists are injured and killed depending on their ages. I have taken three places which show up some patterns which deserve more analysis (London, Edinburgh and Northampton). There are some obvious patterns, in that children are hurt in the residential areas, 16-55 year olds tend to be injured in the commercial centres and along the main arterial roads whereas 55+ year olds have their own distinct patterns. However, it is also possible to see tell-tail clusters which deserve more investigation, including the apparent rat-runs along ‘residential’ roads that have much higher levels of injury than surrounding roads, and also the junctions and sections roads where higher numbers of casualties that surrounding ones. Click on the maps to make them bigger and see what you can find.

Thank you to the hundreds of cyclists who took part in the Tour du danger today to highlight a number of London’s most dangerous junctions and put pressure on the Mayor and on TfL to do some serious work on them.

Here are some maps showing where people are have been getting killed and injured in recent years. The first one shows deaths and injuries from traffic crashes between 2000 and 2010, the second for 2010 only and the next one for 2009 and the final one for 2000. Areas of blue indicate were pedestrians are getting injured and killed, red shows the high risk areas for cyclists. Purple is for motorcyclists and tan/green for vehicle occupants. Click on the images to see them full size.

Road casualties in Central London 2000-2010

Road casualties in Central London 2010

Road casualties in Central London 2009

Road Casualties in Central London 2000

These maps appear to show that fatalities amongst vehicle occupants has fallen from 17 in 2000 to one in 2009 and then zero in 2010. For cyclists the trend is apparently going the other way (up from four in 2000 to eight in 2009 and also in 2010). Motorcyclist fatalities are up from 0 in 2000 to 6 in 2010, pedestrians falling significantly. Do however be aware that this map only shows one fatality blob for crashes with multiple fatalities (which may include multiple modes). I will do some more work on this in the coming week and the figures may then need to be adjusted upwards.

Pedestrians are discriminated against

"In contrast to the changes made to every town and city to ease motor transport, walking has been made ever more unpleasant. Pedestrians have been treated with contempt. In a myriad of ways when we walk we are treated with less respect than when we drive". (quote for a cross-party parliamentary select committee report on walking in towns from 2001).

This blog documents how this discrimination works, what laws underpin it and what people are doing to counter it. Please take action and share your experiences in the comments section, on twitter or join our facebook group. Add photos to the Flickr pool. All photographs cc-by-sa 3.0 unless otherwise stated or obvious from the source.